Claim to Fame

The youngest leading soloist for the Armitage Gone! dance company in the past five years, Aila has made waves as a passionate modern dancer. The fire she displays in her performances is no match for the coolness she exudes at other times, and she's fairly well-known as an elitist.

Biography

Born in a middle class suburb of Miami, Florida, Aila Verde, an only child, was raised by her maternal grandparents. The environment didn't exactly inspire exuberance, and as such, Aila was a quietly curious child, spending many hours at her grandfather's knee listening to war stories and other antiquities gathered over the decades by a Cuban immigrant and proud veteran of the Vietnam War. Her grandmother immigrated to the U.S. along with her husband, and though she lamented the decision quite often, to the point of refusing to learn more than a handful English words, she took a great interest in raising Aila in the most American way possible, dressing the girl in blue jeans and enrolling her in piano and ballet lessons. She gave up on the piano fairly quickly, displaying little to no ability at all.

She threw herself into dancing however, with an at times alarming voracity, and she moved through the classes fairly quickly, joining the Pro Prep class at only eleven years old. Her instructors were for most part impressed with her progress, though they did express concern over the vehemence displayed in her dancing. It was decided that she'd transfer from the classical lessons she'd been taking to a more modern ballet style. As expected, she flourished, and the fiery side of her latina heritage reared it's head in her dancing, a side that heretofore had been unseen in the quiet girl.

She shunned the company of other girls in her class both at school and in dance, preferring to keep her own company. And so life went until her senior year of high school when her grandmother succumbed to throat cancer, a battle she'd been fighting for years, stubbornly refusing modern treatments and instead relying on her strong Catholic faith to see her through to the end. With her passing came Aila's decision to move to New York to finish her school year, then join a dance company after graduation.

Her grandfather offered little protest, bent with a quiet grief over the passing of his wife. It was decided then that they would sell the house, the money used to see Aila through in New York, and also to settle her grandfather into a retirement home where he could live out his years without the worry of up keeping a house.

While readying the house for sale, Aila came across a trunk of tragically moth-eaten yet still beautiful clothing in the attic. More interesting than the clothes was what rested hidden at the bottom of the trunk, a collection of extremely old tomes wrapped in may layers of cloth and plastic. When asked about the books, her grandfather recalled that his wife had insisted upon smuggling the books out of Cuba, lest they be burned as with so many others deemed inappropriate. Upon reaching the United States and fearing that she'd be punished for the theft from a government owned library, she'd kept the books a secret, letting them languish in the attic. Aila packed the books along with her things to take to New York, planning to look through them when she had the time. Along with dancing, Aila had a passion for books from an early age, and as she matured that passion had escalated to the point of bibliophilism, and she'd amassed a small collection of reasonably rare works, but none so old as these.

Revealing her plan to relocate to New York to her fellow dancers, all of whom were quite talented and so deserving of her respect, if not friendship, Aila was approached by another senior and it was quickly decided that the two would get an apartment together, splitting their living costs.

Settling into a small but cozy apartment in Manhattan, the girls enrolled in the same local performing arts school, majoring in dance. While Aila did fairly well in school, it didn't necessarily come easy. History and literature she had a natural affinity for, but math and the sciences were her bane. Indeed anything involving numbers gave her a hard time, and it was only with intense study that she was able to keep from failing those classes outright. Her roommate was rarely home, instead deciding to party and live the wild life. Much to Aila's annoyance, this behavior didn't seem to affect the girl's performance at all. If anything, as the months passed, her dancing got better. Finally unable to stand it any longer, Aila decided to approach the girl. Pushing in the bedroom door clearly marked 'Brittany's Room', she saw a pentagram for the first time. Freezing in her tracks, she watches her roommate dancing within the confines of the chalked pentagram. Once Brittany finished what was apparently a ritual of some sort, the two girls sat down and Brittany explained.

Apparently this particular ritual allowed Brittany to record an image of herself dancing perfectly, an image that she could project around herself during class, and no matter how hard she'd partied the night before, her dancing would be impeccable. Aila couldn't believe this at first, scoffing at the idea that magic was anything more than something from a fairy tale.

It took some time, and many more demonstrations, before Aila finally bought the idea. She didn't know that the girl was a novice practitioner herself, but she quickly became an avid student, learning the basics quickly. While she couldn't manage actually glamouring an entire dance yet, being younger and more inexperienced than Brittany, she could enhance her art, making each jump seem a bit higher, each spin a bit longer. Illusion magics didn't come cheap, and she found that she had more of a natural affinity with Elemental workings. These too exacted their costs, but the price of a delicate breeze to whip her hair just so during a performance, or a ribbon of her costume to flow about her frame as if made of living fire, was much less steep.

Upon her graduation from high school, Aila was almost immediately accepted into the Armitage Gone! dance company, where she naturally flourished, working hard to perfect her craft. Though she still performs with the company, she decided to take some time off to travel, as well as pursue her bibliophilic interests.

Character Details

A loner by design, and a sociopath by chance, Aila takes great pleasure in confusing people, especially those she considers intellectual inferiors. Meaning everyone. An avid dancer, her passion in this one area shines through whenever the subject comes up, just about the only time a genuine emotion will flow through Aila is when the conversation is about herself. Generally unaware of the emotions of those around her, or perhaps simply apathetic to their existance, Aila is at once witty and engaging while at the same time quite pleased by the unease she can permeate a room with.

Dance

Aila is an accomplished professional modern ballerina, often traveling and performing with the Armitage Gone! dance company.

History

Aila is well-versed in American and Cuban history. Politics and War are special favorites, and she can go toe to toe with any expert in these fields.

Appraisal

Aila is an amateur rare books dealer, and as such she is quite adept at spotting forgeries, retouches, and vandalism, especially in literary works, but also with money, government issued documents such as passports and identification cards, and famous works of art.

Elemental Magic

Aila is a newcomer to the world of magic working, and as such she has only the basic fundamentals of the craft under her belt, though she is an avid pupil and willing to learn from anyone who can and will teach her more.

Illusion Magic

Aila began her magical career attempting illusion magic and found it quite difficult, and probably would have given up on magic altogether if she hadn't discovered an affinity for elemental magic. Even so, she can with difficulty perform basic feats of illusion and glamour.

Social

Aila is anti-social on the surface and a possible undiagnosed sociopath at the core. Though she can make small talk as well as any normal person, and indeed be quite witty and engaging at times, there is always the thought in the back of her mind that she'd rather be anywhere else, doing anything else, instead.

Mathematics

Aila is utterly hopeless in regards to anything involving numbers, even the simplest equations involve a calculator, and anything that involves a formula, be it figuring out how many cups of flour to add to a recipe, or how much tax will be added to an item that costs one dollar, is enough to send her into a near rage.

Antiques

Aila is, despite her age, obsessed with antiquities, and a rare book or painting, even a well-preserved rocking chair, would be as coveted as a pair of limited edition Louboutin stiletto heels. Willing to go above and beyond to get her hands on the things she loves most, Aila possesses more than a few items whose origins are best left a mystery.